“Then he showed me the high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the Lord, with Satan standing at his right side to accuse him.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Have you ever been part of an inside joke? Those are always kind of fun. You know something that only a select group of people know. You get to laugh about it together while everyone else just wonders. It creates a bond among you that is strong. Even years later a single word or phrase can reconnect people who otherwise have nothing in common. It’s hard as a modern follower of Jesus not to look back at passage like this one and feel like we are part of an inside joke that much of the original audience never got.
“I looked up and saw a man with a measuring line in his hand. I asked, ‘Where are you going?’ He answered me, ‘To measure Jerusalem to determine its width and length.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)
This week I will be taking my church through the parable of the prodigal son. This is one of the most famous and beloved Jesus ever told. A big part of the reason for this is that it takes the longing we all have to be home and gives it the affirmation that we can find our home in God’s house if only we will return to Him. What we see in this next vision of Zechariah is that this longing has always been a part of the human experience and there’s a reason for it: We were made to be home. We were made to be home and our God intends to bring us home.
This week as we get back into our series, Going It Alone, we’re talking about legacies. How do you want to be remembered? Your answer tot that question matters a great deal. Whatever you might affirm verbally, your behavior will always bear out what you really believe. A strong, good legacy can last for generations…but so can a weak or ugly one. Let’s talk about it.
What Will You Leave Behind?
How do you want to be remembered? What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind after you’ve left this place? That’s a question most folks wrestle with at some point in their lives. It’s something that everybody thinks about whether they are a follow of Jesus or not. Christians don’t have any kind of monopoly on that kind of thinking. In fact, for folks who aren’t followers of Jesus, this is an even bigger deal because if there’s nothing after this life, then the legacy we leave behind is the closest thing to immortality there is. And so, for many, many people, the idea of their legacy is a really important one. But, not only will we leave a legacy behind us, but we are also the heirs to someone else’s legacy. Most of us are the way we are and have experienced the things we have experienced because of what someone else did before us. It may have been your parents. It may have been your grandparents. It could have been someone else as well. It could be that you’re doing the things you’re doing as a conscious effort to continue the legacy of one of these people. It could be that you’re doing them as a conscious attempt to thwart it.
“I asked, ‘What are they coming to do?’ He replied, ‘These are the horns that scattered Judah so no one could raise his head. These craftsmen have come to terrify them, to cut off the horns of the nations that raised a horn against the land of Judah to scatter it.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Nobody likes a bully. Nobody likes a bully and yet still, bullies are out there. They’re all over the place. Why? Why do so many folks turn to that particular tactic in their interactions with others? Many reasons. Often they’ve been bullied themselves by a parent or someone else in authority over them. They’re frequently trying to cover for some perceived lack they see in themselves. Occasionally they’ve just learned that’s the only way they can get what they want. Sometimes they’re just mean. Whatever the reason, though, nobody likes a bully. What we see here is God promising to deal with Israel’s bullies.
“I looked out in the night and saw a man riding on a chestnut horse. He was standing among the myrtle trees in the valley. Behind him were chestnut, brown, and white horses. I asked, ‘What are these, my lord?’ The angel who was talking to me replied, ‘I will show you what they are.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Discipline is not fun. It’s not fun and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who takes the opposite opinion. It certainly doesn’t appear in the Scriptures. The most explicit reference to discipline there comes from the writer of Hebrews who says it plainly: “No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful.” This is doubly true when you are the one doing the disciplining and the object of your effort is your children. When the discipline is over, though, what is needed then? We get a glimpse of that here in Zechariah’s first vision.
The Nexus 